Dec 26, 2017  To get started, click the Disk Utility option. Depending on how you started Recovery Mode, you may be presented with the option to start Disk Utility right away, as seen above. If not you can find Disk Utility in the menu bar: click Utilities then Disk Utility. You’ll now see your list of hard drives. Click your primary drive, then click. Apr 12, 2017  If your Mac already has a built-in optical drive, or an external optical drive connected, you won't see the Remote Disc feature appear in the Finder or other apps. If you're using a compatible disc and you don't see it from Remote Disc, make sure the sharing computer is turned on, is connected to the same network as your Mac, and has a.

Jun 08, 2020 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

It is not rare to see people coming and asking how to format their new or second hard drive on Mac or Windows either for freeing up space or for making hard drives to be compatible with a new operating system. As speaking of this, it is essential to grasp the key steps to format your new or second hard drive. Before that, we will walk you through the reasons why or when you need to format new or second hard drives. Read on to discover more!

Part 1. Do You Need to Format a New or Second Hard Drive

To begin with, do you need to format a new hard drive? The answer is positive as formatting a new hard drive is the very first step before you start to use the new hard drive, isn’t it? Basically, the gesture to format a new drive means so much to users because it signifies the note that this new drive is working correctly, completely clean, and free of malware or malicious code that may potentially harm your installation and personal files. Now you see when you buy a new hard drive, you need to make sure the drive is functioning well and it is clean.

What about second or used hard drives? Honestly, formatting second or used hard drives will help avoid a lot of issues or compatibility problems, especially when they were previously connected to a different operating system.

In short, formatting a new or second hard drive brings evident benefits to users as listed below.

• Tidy up your drive and free up space.
• Eliminate virus, conflicts, or else from the existing drive.
• Remove any potential malware or malicious code.
• Erase any information on the used drive so that your operating system can read data from, and write data to, the drive.
• Improve system performance.
• Save money.

If you are going to format a new or second hard drive, keep in mind the following tips.

• Be 100% sure to back up your data before taking any action. This is especially vital to used hard drives. Otherwise, you may need to turn to professional software to recover the data lost during formatting.
• Makes sure your PC is fully charged as formatting or partitioning will take some time to finish.

Part 2. How to Format a New or Second Hard Drive in Windows 10

Formatting a drive may vary in terms of different operating systems, like Windows and Mac. Although in principal, formatting means to erase existing data and free up space for utilization, the procedures are not exactly the same for Mac and Windows.

In specific, if you want to know how to format a new or second hard drive in Windows 10, don’t miss the step-by-step instruction here.

Check your hard drive and categorize it as partitioned or non-partitioned beforehand. For a drive that has been configured with a partition, simply go through the formatting steps here to make a fresh drive.

Step 1: Open Disk Management

Type in disk management from the quick search box or directly move to the administrative tools to locate the disk management. Launch Disk Management.

Step 2: Right click to format the drive

Now that you've found the drive you want to format, right-click it and choose Format to open the disk-formatting wizard.

Tips: Before you actually format the hard drive, you may click and open the drive to make sure this is exactly the drive you want to erase data and make a fresh drive.

Heads-up here! When you fail to locate the drive to format, or you see that an Initialize Disk window appears, it probably means that the hard drive is new and it’s never been partitioned yet. In this case you have to partition the drive beforehand as partitioning is something that must be done before a hard drive is formatted. Let me walk you through a brief procedure to partition your hard drive.

Step 1: Open Disk Management

Use the command line to enter the disk management interface, where you will see a pop-up windows indicating 'You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it.'

Step 2: Choose a style

Besides, choose a partition style based on the hard drive size. If it is larger than 2TB, choose GPT, otherwise choose MBR. Click OK to proceed.

Step 3: Locate the drive to partition and select a space for the partitioning

From the Disk Management window, tap the hard drive to partition and right click to choose New Simple Volume.

Step 4: Proceed to the partitioning wizard

On the pop-up windows, click Next to proceed according to the partitioning wizard. You will see a window asking you to verify the partition choices from the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard screen. Once you have verified all the choices, click Finish to complete the partitioning.

This is the end of your partitioning a hard drive before you actually take steps to format the hard drive. Note that in Windows 10, these procedures are easy to follow just like the other Windows systems with only minor differences in terms of the user interface.

Part 3. How to Format a New or Second Hard Drive on Mac

Mac is obviously a very much different operating system from Windows, let alone their features and steps to format a hard drive. Therefore, it is necessary to present a tutorial guide here to format or partition a hard drive within Mac OS.

Step 1: Launch Disk Utility from the launch pad on Mac or find disk utility from Finder

Open your Finder and enter “disk utility” on the quick search bar to locate the Disk Utility icon. Or start launchpad and find the disk utility from launchpad.

Step 2: Locate the drive from the Disk Utility window

Click on the target hard drive from the sidebar on the left and you will see the details of this drive on the right pane, such as disk image volume, and a few buttons on top of the window.

Step 3: Erase the data on the drive

Tap on the Erase button from the function tab on the top of the window.

Step 4: Choose Mac OS extended for the volume format menu

On the displayed window, choose Mac OS extended for the volume format menu and you may name the hard drive on the Name box. Then, click the Erase button below to kick off the process, which will take a few minutes only.

Mac Os Disk Creator

Similar to formatting a hard drive, if you want to partition your hard drive due to various reasons, such as creating two OS within one box or saving space for data backup, you may follow steps here to partition the hard drive. The steps to partition a hard drive resemble to those of formatting a hard drive except the part of erasing data. In terms of partitioning a hard drive, when you navigate to the drive window, check for the volume information of the hard drive in advance.

Next, tap on the Partition button on the top of the window, where a window will pop up to let you specify the number of partitions, volume of each partition, and the name of these partitions. When all these settings are done, click Apply to move on to partition the hard drive eventually.

Tips: It is never too late to emphasize the importance of backing up your data before you format or partition your hard drive. You cannot be too cautious during data backup. We all don’t want to see or hear any data loss. That is sad, isn’t it? What if that happens? Can we have a remedy solution to get the data back? Absolutely yes.

Recoverit Mac Data Recovery is the very tool to help you get back your data that has been lost accidentally or the data you forget to backup beforehand. With it, you may relax a little bit because it will help you recover your data completely, no matter for a crashed drive or for accidental deletion of data.

To do so, you may follow the tutorial guide here.

Step 1: Locate the target drive

Launch Recoverit on your PC and locate the drive to scan. Note that once you open Recoverit, it will automatically display all available drives and you just need to select the target drive to recover data. Click the Start button at the bottom to proceed.

Step 2: Scan the file location

On the left pane, there will be two categories, namely file type and file path, both of which are created to help users with tracking down to specific files to recover. As soon as the scan ends, there will be a preview of your lost files on the right pane.

Step 3: Preview and recover formatted data

Select the target files by ticking the check boxes in front of the file name on the left pane and click Recover at the bottom to kick off the process. It is recommended that you save the recovered data files to a new drive once the whole process completes.

Closing Words

Formatting a new or second hard drive is usual. The routine procedure may differ a little bit for different operating systems, such as Windows and Mac OS. However, it is essential to follow two major steps for any systems, data backup, format/parition, respectively. That being said, you need to bear in mind that no matter for formatting or partitioning a hard drive, data backup is a must.

The last but certainly not the least, if you lose the data by accident, you may turn to free data recovery software - Recoverit for help. It will surely do the best to recover your deleted or lost files from your PC, hard drive, USB drive, SD card, mobile phone, as well as other removable devices on Windows and Mac.

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Does your Mac not recognize a USB drive? Is the USB flash drive not showing up on Mac after inserting it in the USB port? Find solutions here. Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac when you want to recover data from a USB drive not recognized.

Mac Won't Recognize USB, What Should You Do?

Commonly, when you insert a USB drive in the USB port on a Mac computer, the drive will soon appear on the desktop or hide in the Finder, letting you access, view, and manage data on it. Did you come across the situation that no matter how many times you try to connect the USB drive with a Mac computer, the USB drive is not showing up anywhere? Why this time Mac won't recognize a connected USB you may wonder. Though not a usual thing, the issue of an external hard drive or flash drive not showing up on Mac happens sometimes. What should you do in this circumstance? What are the effective solutions to make your USB drive show up again?

This page basically covers all the possible fixes for USB not showing up on Mac, which also applies to the similar issues of other storage devices like an external hard drive not showing up on Mac, flash drive not showing up on Mac, SD card not showing up on Mac, etc. Take a quick glance at the main content and directly jump to the part you're most interested in.

10 Fixes for USB Not Showing Up on Mac

The reasons behind the problem of a USB device not showing up are various, including the USB port is not working, USB drive corruption, virus infection, macOS faulty, etc. So, to figure out the effective solutions for your own case, you need to take time to have some basic check, exclude the irrelevant issues, identify the potential risk, and finally solve it!

Fix 1. Change the USB-to-Mac connection way

Have you tried to restart your Mac once or twice? Before taking further measures, don't forget the most efficient way to tackle commonplace hardware glitches that arises from time to time. If this operating system restarting fails to solve the current problem, move on to check the physical connectivity issue step by step.

Step 1. Plug the USB drive out from the not working USB port and change to the other USB port. Try all the available USB ports on your Mac.

Step 2. Did you use a USB connection cable or a USB-C adapter? If yes, take the USB drive out, and directly plug it in the USB port.

Step 3. Is there the other Mac computer available to you? If yes, try to connect the USB drive to this computer. Is it showing up normally?

Step 4. For SD card owners, the common way to connect an SD card to a Mac needs a card reader. If changing the USB ports did not work, try to change a card reader for a new round of tests.

The four steps of troubleshooting a USB drive not showing up on Mac are very basic, however, quite helpful in most cases. Each step can help us exclude the issues of a bad/loose connection, a not working USB port, a lack of power, and other superficial phenomenons.

Fix 2. Change settings for Mac detecting an external hard disk on the desktop

Occasionally, your Mac has already recognized the USB flash drive but not shown it on the desktop. Thus, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is ticked. Then you'll see the USB flash drive showing up on Mac desktop.

Fix 3. Change settings for Mac recognize an external hard disk in the Finder

Finder is the other access for us to check a connected external drive on Mac. If your flash drive or external hard drive is not showing up there, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, and under Locations, you need to tick the option 'External disks'. By selecting this option, we can make sure that the connected external USB hard drive or flash drive will normally show up in the Finder.

Fix 4. Check the USB drive in System Information

When you cannot find the USB drive on the desktop or in the Finder, try to look for it in the System Information section, which is usually a hidden place for average Mac users.

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > System Information.

Step 2. Check if the system detects the USB drive. Click 'USB' on the left panel, and you can also check the USB flash drive information.

Fix 5. Reset USB ports on Mac to detect a USB drive

Step 1. Restart Mac computer, press the Command +Option+P+R keys until the Apple logo appears.

Step 2. Press Command+Option+Esc keys to close all applications that are not responding.

Step 3. Plug the USB which is not showing up to your Mac computer. If it doesn't show up, click Apple icon and select 'Sleep'.

Step 4. Wake up the computer after a few seconds by pressing any key.

Step 5. Shut down the Mac, unplug the power cord, reattach it after 15 seconds.

If this doesn't work, we should suspect the corruption issue at this moment. Don't give up and try to do some repair by yourself.

Fix 6. Repair USB flash drive with First Aid if it doesn't show up

Step 1. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

1. Step 2. Select USB flash drive on the left panel of Disk Utility, and click 'First Aid' at the top toolbar and click 'Run'. Disk Utility will repair any errors on the drive automatically.

Step 3. Select the USB drive and click 'Unmount' at the top toolbar, unplug the USB and plug it back in 10-15 seconds.

Fix 7. Check and fix errors in a not recognized USB with Terminal

Step 1. Open Terminal in Utilities, type:diskutil list and press Return.

Step 2. Find the disk number of your USB flash drive, type: diskutil info disk2 and press Return. (Replace 2 with the disk number of your USB flash drive.)

Step 3. Type: diskutil eject disk 2 and press Return.

Step 4. Type: diskutil list and press Return.When the USB disappear from the Terminal list, close the window.

Mac Os Discover Disk Driver

Step 5. Close Terminal and open Console to inspect your drive errors.

Step 6. Click 'Errors and Faults' to check if there are any errors.

Step 7. Reconnect your USB flash drive back to Mac, if no error shows up, your USB flash drive is safe.

Fix 8. Save data and reformat the not showing USB drive

Disk reformatting basically solves many hard drive issues, including the not showing up USB, particularly the time when you are able to see the USB icon but files are not showing. USB drive showing empty makes no sense, so you have to reformat the disk and make it usable again.

Note that reformatting will erase data. As long as the data matters, you need to follow the standard procedure to ensure zero data loss. [1] Download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac, the professional Mac data recovery software, to perform a full USB drive data recovery. [2] Reformat the USB drive in Disk Utility.

To format the USB drive in Disk Utility:

Step 1. Go to Utilities and open Disk Utility.

Mac Os Install Disk

Step 2. Select the not showing up USB flash drive in the Disk Utility sidebar.

Step 3. Click Erase on the top.

Step 4. Finish the necessary information (name, format, and scheme) to format the USB flash drive.

Mac Os Disk Utility Download

Fix 9. Update your macOS and firmware

Did your Mac's OS keep updating all the time? Chances are that your Mac won't recognize a USB drive, especially after a macOS update. This time, take a close look at the settings whether your Mac is up-to-date. Equally, firmware updates address a variety of hardware issues and the functionality of the USB ports could well be one of them. So, keep your software and firmware up to date will likely make the USB drive show up as normal again.

Macbook Os X Disk

Fix 10. Send the USB drive to a repair center

Nowadays even the branded USB flash drives are not expensive. If you've tried all the suggested troubleshooting methods, the USB drive is still not showing up on Mac, you have to accept the truth that it's severely damaged and beyond your ability to repair it.

Mac won't recognize a badly damaged flash drive or external hard drive since there is no way to show it up, even temporarily, which makes the data recovery difficult. The last chance for you to rescue data is to send the broken USB drive to a specialized data recovery service center nearby, and let the professionals try their best. You need to prepare for the manual data recovery cost, which is noticeably higher than the software data recovery. Hence, always try the cost-effective plan of using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to scan the USB drive for the first attempt.

Step 1. Correctly connect your USB flash drive to your Mac. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac. Start selecting the flash drive and click Scan to let the software search lost files on it.

Mac Os Disk Recovery

Step 2. After quick scan and deep scan, all files will be presented in the left pane in the scan results.

Step 3. Select files you want to recover and click Recover Now button. Don't save the recoverable files to the USB drive itself in case of data overwriting.